On Bullshit Review: Why Indifference to Truth Is Not the Same as Lying
Some books linger not because they change your mind, but because they give a precise name to something you had already noticed. Harry Frankfurt’s On Bullshit is one of those. I first noticed it when the essay appeared as a small standalone book in 2005. Part of its appeal was the contrast: a distinguished philosopher taking a word normally excluded from formal discourse and examining it with complete analytical seriousness. The joke carried the book into public attention, but the distinction at its centre is what allowed it to remain useful. Bullshit, in Frankfurt’s account, is not a weaker or less offensive version of lying. The difference does not depend primarily on whether a statement is true or false. It depends on whether truth has been allowed to govern what the speaker is doing. A liar must keep track of reality closely enough to conceal or contradict it. A bullshitter may use truth, falsehood, exaggeration or ambiguity with equal willingness, provided the result produce...